Field of the Application
The disclosure is directed to wireless communications and, more particularly, to managing a device in a mixed wireless communication system.
Background of the Disclosure
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services, such as: voice, video, packet data, circuit-switched info, broadcast, messaging services, and so on. There are different types of communication systems deployed that may provide different services to devices. For example, LTE provides high-speed data services while CDMA2000 provides high quality voice services. A mixed wireless communication system may exist when various service providers cover congruent areas. Devices may have the capability to support several of these services on a single device. For example, a mobile phone may be LTE, Bluetooth®, GSM, and Wi-Fi enabled. Moreover, these various systems may evolve over time and/or be newly deployed creating intermittent connectivity issues, service quality issues, and other related problems. For example, LTE, a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data, is a packet-based (or packet-switched) internet protocol (IP) network that cannot support circuit-switched calls. Thus, if a voice centric device wants to make a voice call on an LTE network, it needs to be able to utilize a voice supported communication system.
Circuit Switched Fall Back (CSFB) technology was developed so that a voice call or a SMS message being delivered to an LTE device could work via the use of another circuit-switched network (e.g., GSM, etc.). With CSFB, when an LTE device is used to make or receive a voice call, the device “falls back” to a 3G or 2G network to complete the call or to deliver the SMS message. Some LTE networks that are deployed support CSFB and some do not. Therefore, problems can arise when a voice centric device is on an LTE network that does not support CSFB. A voice centric device on a non-CSFB LTE network may temporality disable its LTE connection and use a voice supported network. However, the device may try shortly afterwards to reconnect to an LTE network by scanning to see if an LTE network is available. The device may still be in an area where a non-CSFB LTE network is located and continue to make frequent unnecessary LTE scans.
Frequent scanning consumes valuable device power. Conversely, waiting too long to scan may cause the voice centric device to miss the chance to reconnect to a CSFB supported LTE network. A user may experience slower data services as a result or other inconvenient problems that may affect the user's experience. An incomplete solution sometimes used to address these potential problems is the use of a simple scan timer, which could be used to indicate when a device would scan. When the scan timer expired, the device would scan. However, this overly-simple and incomplete solution is inefficient and does not fully solve the potential problems addressed.
Therefore, what is needed is a method, system, and apparatus for managing a device in a mixed wireless communication system are needed.